OF MISS ARKROYD AND HER AVIARY. HOW MR. CHALLIS WALKED IN THE GARDEN
WITH HER. OF MR. TRIPTOLEMUS WRAXALL. AND OF HOW MR. CHALLIS WROTE TO
HIS WIFE
It is bewildering to reflect on the number of avenues open to Society
by which to approach its own final perfection. And disappointing, too,
when a start has been made along some promising one, to come so soon to
a parting of the ways, with never a signpost--not so much as a stray
uncrucified Messiah for a guide--as the night falls over the land. For
even so, each last new Theory of Perfectibility, each panacea for the
endemics that afflict us, seems to pass from the glory of its dawn to
the chill hours of its doubt; and its Apostles fall away and change
their minds, and its subscribers discontinue their subscriptions,
and it becomes out of date. And those who have not lain low, like
Br'er Fox, but have committed themselves past all recall to its
infallibility, are sorry because they cannot remind us that they said
so all along, only they were never paid the slightest attention to.
It is possible that some such perceptions passed through Mr. Challis's
reflective mind in the course of next day at Royd. He began to find
out that he was in a sort of hornet's nest of Reformers, every one of
them anxious to point out avenues of salvation for Society. For Sir
Murgatroyd, who was the soul of liberality towards every doctrine,
political, religious, or social, that he had no prejudice against,
liked nothing better than to crowd his house full of reforming
theorists. Was he not himself one, and the author of a pamphlet called
"The Higher Socialism: An Essay towards a Better Understanding of
the Feudal System"? He therefore welcomed with splendid hospitality
every advocate of every doctrine that was undoubtedly new, only
two conditions being complied with. One was that if it was a New
Morality it should be possible to enter into its details without
shocking--suppose we say--a hardened reader of Laurence Sterne;
and the other that it should not countenance, palliate, advocate,
encourage, support, or lend adhesion to his especial _bête noire_,
the Americanization of our Institutions. On this particular occasion
a fine bag of neo-archs--how apologize for such a word?--had been
secured by him during his summer holiday; and when Mr. Challis made his
appearance at the breakfast-table next morning, he was buttonholed away
from its beautiful clean damask by a brace of Thinkers, each anxious to
communicate his Thoughts, and, if possible, entangle the sympathies of
a powerful pen "Titus Scroop" was known to possess.
It _is_ annoying to be interrupted when you are making up your mind
what you'll have; and then you take poached eggs when you want filleted
plaice, or _vice-versa_. Mr. Challis showed intrepidity, saying to a
disciple of the learned German reformer Graubosch: "I make a point
of never listening to anything worth hearing at breakfast." It was
a clever repulse; but committed him to capitulation to Graubosch
later. He succeeded, but with a like reservation, in escaping from an
advocate of a really formidable system of Assurance which would have
widespread effects on Society, by saying--as though the first few words
of its exponent had gone home to him--"You and I must talk that out
over a game of billiards." The fact is this gentleman had not been
sufficiently congratulated about his last book, so far, by the ladies
of the family; and he felt a strong bias towards being flattered by
Miss Arkroyd particularly, although in his letter to his wife he had
spoken with coldness--ostentatious, and he knew it--of this young
lady's fascinations. So he was already scheming in his heart to get
her in a corner by herself, where she would be able to express her
wonder at his insight into things no one else--except she and he,
presumably--knew anything about. He was perceptibly conscious that
the short interview between himself and this very good-looking young
lady, the evening before, had lacked reference to his insight, and that
recognition in that quarter would be pleasant.
It is a little difficult to saunter away from Thinkers who are
convinced that you will be interested in their Thoughts, especially
if you have given any of them the right to begin, "Referring to what
we were saying yesterday, etc."; or, "I have been thinking over that
apparent contradiction, etc." But it can be done, with tact. Mr.
Challis had not a perfectly clear record of avoidance of Philosophy:
his buttonholers of the morning could have pleaded justifications. So
he felt diplomatic as he got into another coat because the sun was
quite hot in the garden, and then came down the other stairs, where
he was sure to meet nobody, and so through the kitchen-gardens to
the Inigo Jones orangery that was now an aviary. That was where Miss
Arkroyd had said she was going--not to him, but to someone else in
his hearing. So clearly so that it was almost as good as if he hadn't
heard, but had approached her by accident, when he came upon her out of
a side-avenue of clipped hedges. By that time he was sauntering quite
naturally, with a cigar in his mouth, just begun. This was as it should
be.
"Have you seen my green parroquets?" said the lady.
"I haven't noticed any. Are they loose in the garden?" As though they
would have been! But Mr. Challis wasn't in earnest.
"Not that I know of! Did you see any?" She had taken him quite
seriously, and he had to explain.
"It was my ill-judged facetiousness," said he. "I meant I had been
nowhere except in the garden."
"Oh, I see! You quite frightened me. They are such nice little people.
Come in and look at them." But Mr. Challis felt that he would have
to practise a certain discretion in his accustomed modes of speech,
one of which was a perverse gravity over an obvious absurdity. But
he had long given up expecting insight into this from Marianne, the
impossible wife. Why should he, then, from this young woman, to whom
he and his ways were quite a novelty? Besides, we had to consider the
individualities of that strange creature, the human Toff. Mr. Challis
reflected that absurd tropes and inversions, without a smile, are the
breath of life to cab and bus men. Perhaps William the Norman never put
his royal tongue in his cheek: it may have been contrary to the Feudal
System.
The little parroquets didn't wait for their proprietor and this new
gentleman to come into their palace. The moment they heard them they
came with a wild rush into an outside cage. But, being out, they
took no notice of their disturbers--none whatever! They conversed
about them, clewed side by side on a long perch, with a stunning and
unhesitating volubility that made the brain reel; a shrill, intolerable
prestissimo of demisemiquavers on one note that pierced the drum of the
ear like a rain of small steel shot. They had come to so exactly the
same conclusion, so it seemed, as they all repeated it at once, first
to right, then to left--had so precisely the same opinion about their
visitors, that it was hardly necessary to dwell upon it so long, Mr.
Challis thought.
"Are they sweet, or are they not?" was what his companion said.
Challis admitted the sweetness--or possible sweetness--of their
dispositions. But he took exception to their voices. He would have
preferred these to be more like Cordelia's. The nice little people kept
up such a fire of comment, although Miss Arkroyd was now supplying them
with cherries, that Challis could hardly hear what she was saying. But
he gathered that it was eulogy of the way in which he had referred to
the voice of Cordelia and King Lear's description of it, in one of his
novels. Only it seemed to him that she was putting the saddle on the
wrong horse--ascribing the passage to the wrong book, for she mentioned
the "Spendthrift's Legacy," the first work that introduced him to his
public. As is frequently the case, this book continued to be the one he
was most connected with by non-readers of his works, for all that many
more recent ones had had a much larger circulation.
"Are you sure it isn't in 'The Epidermis'?" he asked.
"What isn't?"
"'Gentle and low, an excellent thing in women'--or parrots--what you
referred to just now...."
"What's 'The Epidermis'? Who's it by? I mean--I've seen it. But I
didn't know it was yours." Whereat Mr. Challis felt crushed. Fancy
anybody not knowing whom "The Epidermis" was by! If it had only been
not having read it yet, _that_ could have been softened by confession
of intense yearning to do so, unfairly frustrated by anæmic Circulating
Libraries. But not to know whom it was by!
"Name of my last book. Fidgetts and Thrills. Six Shillings net." Mr.
Challis affected a light joking tone. But he was mortified. However,
Miss Arkroyd was under obligation to invent something of a palliative
nature, and in the effort Cordelia's voice lapsed.
"Oh yes-s-s-s!" said she, dwelling on the "s" to express a mind
momentarily bewildered, but awaiting a light that was sure to come,
if she made the hiss long enough, and then cutting sharply in with an
interruption to it. "I was thinking of another book. _Quite_ another!"
And then closed the subject for good, but as one that might have been
pursued had she been thinking of a book that was rather another, but
not quite.
You see, the fact was that this young woman had read _none_ of this
author's works, though it seemed she yearned to do so. She had had no
time for reading, and the book had always got sent back to Mudie's
before she had read it, and so on. Well!--we can all sympathize, can't
we? But, then, she shouldn't have pretended she had, because that was
fibs. At most she had read a quotation from one of his stories--she
couldn't say which--in a review.
Mr. Challis suspected all this, and was too much a man of the world
to commit the blunder of proving that a lady had told fibs, however
insignificant. He was rather glad the little green birds kept in such
good voice, for though they usually dropped their cherries and wanted
another, they never dropped their subject. They helped the position,
and Challis felt he ought to help, too. His vanity was a little
wounded; but, then, how jolly comfortable that bed was, and what a
lovely cold douche that was after a real hot bath and what a choice
cigar this was, just recently supplied by this lady's brother! No!--he
would be generous, and help.
"How charmingly your sister draws! I was looking at her landscapes last
night."
"She's Prong's favourite pupil."
"She's very clever?"
"Oh yes!--she can do anything she turns her hands to. We differ on many
points. But it's impossible to deny her cleverness. Poor Sibyl!--I
suppose she can't help it."
"Can't help what?"
"Well!--rubbing me up the wrong way. But we all do that." Challis began
to feel that he was in the bosom of the Family. He might ask questions
freely, and did so as soon as the quiet of a retired walk in the garden
allowed freedom of speech. The parroquets dropped the subject abruptly
as soon as they found themselves alone.
"What's the Great Idea? I heard Lady Arkroyd talking of it to Lord
Felixthorpe. It was her idea, wasn't it?"
"Do you mean Mamma's?" Judith asked. Mr. Challis had not, and hesitated
a moment. Should he say, "Miss Sibyl's"? Surely no! Sunday citizens
would say that. Very well, then! Should it be "Sibyl's" or "Your
sister's"? He almost wished the young females of this landed family
were _ladyships_: it comes so much handier for outsiders. He risked the
point, and said, "Sibyl's," but softened the offence by adding, "Your
sister's, I mean." If the fine eyelids were offended, they concealed
it remarkably well. So much so that Mr. Challis said to himself that
no doubt the Normans Christian-named more than the Saxons. Or, were
those eyelids lenient towards his personal self? He was a married man,
certainly; only, then!--a married man may feel flattered, look you! But
this is not our affair at present. How about the Great Idea?
"Sibyl's idea, of course." The speaker accepted the Christian name; she
could have said "My sister's" stiffly. "It's a perfectly mad one. A
sort of new Factory, or perhaps I ought to say Institution. Everything
is to be made there, only nobody is to be allowed to work there who is
qualified to do anything else."
"Anything else than what?"
"Why--don't you understand? Arts and crafts. Enamels and lace and
tapestry and hammered brass and copper. Not manufactures--mediæval
things...."
"Oh, ah!--I know."
"All that sort of thing. Well!--the Great Idea is to take either some
premises of the proper sort, or a piece of land and build a Factory,
with studios for herself and Lady Betty Inglis; she must be in it to
make Sir Spender Inglis, who's enormously rich, find half the capital.
I've done _my_ best ... to prevent it. But it's no use my saying
anything. Will keeps her up to it."
"Your brother?"
"Yes. You see, he's been looking into the question of building, and is
certain he could build at half the usual cost. So he wants to try his
hand on the Factory."
"Poor Sir Spender!"
"That's what I say. And poor Papa! However, that's not Will's only
reason. He wants to build some workshops for himself to carry out
experiments in wireless high-tension currents and aerostation. _I_
don't understand these things."
"Your brother seems a universal genius, too?"
"Yes. But then, he took a very high degree at Cambridge. He always has
that excuse. Sibyl has no degree, and ought to know better."
"What exactly is going to be done at the Factory? And are all the hands
to be ladies? Or how?"
"Very much 'how?' I should say. The idea is, to employ no one who
can do anything else anywhere else. People with one hand or one eye.
Colour-blind guards who can't get places on railways. Deaf and dumb
people that can read the Scriptures aloud automatically and never be
any the wiser, don't you know?"
"Was that what your brother was talking about to your sister"--in this
exact context "Sibyl" would hardly have worked in--"last night? About a
blind chap he told her of. She thought he might be taught to model."
"Did they talk about him? I didn't hear them. A blind beggar-man in
a street where I slum--sells matches, or pretends to. They won't get
_him_ to work for ten shillings a week."
"Why not?"
"Because he's earning ten shillings a day, probably, and putting by
money. They do. Isn't that somebody calling me?... Yes.... I'm coming."
And then the young lady, with a parting benediction to her hearer for
the amusing talk they had had, vanished in response to some summons
which she had distinguished as intended for herself.
He for his part thought it necessary to propose to himself, and to
carry unanimously, a vote of confidence in the great advantage to
the brain it was to get away from one's surroundings now and again,
and get a complete change. He had the hypocrisy to add that the said
surroundings stood to derive benefit also, in ways not precisely
specified. He felt stimulated and braced, confirmed in the image he
treasured of his own identity. His interview with Miss Arkroyd had been
like having the hair of his soul brushed by machinery, and called for
classification. It was necessary to protest against a remark something
somewhere had made, that his own home need not suffer by contrast. He
indignantly repudiated the necessity for discussing the matter, as he
threw away a cigar he had taken some time to smoke.
Still, he did not feel so sure on the point as not to be glad to
be finally pinioned by a gentleman with a theory, whom he had
provisionally escaped from at breakfast, an hour before. This was
Mr. Triptolemus Wraxall, the Apostle of Universal Security, whose
belief that policies and premiums were remedies for all this world's
evils had taken possession of him while discharging the duties of
visiting inspector to a Fire Insurance Office. In the intervals of
his inspections, the object of which was to detect risks of fire in
order that no policies should be issued where any such risks existed,
he had evolved from his inner consciousness a number of systems, all
practicable in the highest degree--almost self-acting, in fact. At
least, they were none of them foolish, like the Rejected Proposal
Insurance (Matrimony), which we believe fell through in consequence
of the dishonest connivance of the parties, renewed proposals being
frequently accepted within twenty-four hours of the payment of the
sum assured. It was even reported that young ladies had advanced the
first year's premium in some cases, in return for a commission of
seventy-five per cent. at settlement; and that the Office was dissuaded
with difficulty by its solicitors from commencing proceedings for
conspiracy. An absurd scheme!
The scheme Mr. Wraxall was anxious to lay before Mr. Challis was at
least (said its inventor) worthy of serious consideration. It was a
simple System of Assurance in which unborn legitimate male children
would, by payment of a premium, secure to themselves the full
advantages of a University education. Of course, he did not rely on
their personal application--that was to be done on their behalf by
their proposed parents--but it was not only ladies and gentlemen who
had substantial guarantees for the appearance of these undergraduates,
but _any lady and gentleman whatever_ were to be at liberty to take
out Policies of Assurance, the premiums getting less and less in
proportion as the improbability of the couple ever having lawful issue
became greater and greater. The modest sum of fifty pounds was to
cover a claim for the possible son of an engaged couple (as bashfully
alluded to in marriage settlements); while a full hundred was required
for an infant of unknown sex awaiting advertisement in the birth
column of the _Times_. On the other hand, where there was very little
chance of the courtship having a successful issue (as in the case of
extreme youth of the parties) the premium went down contemptuously to
a sovereign. Children in arms betrothed by their parents were to enjoy
all the advantages of the institution for two shillings and sixpence.
But the lowest figure on the list, nine decimal point ought-six pence,
was the sum for which any married gentleman could secure its benefits
for the not necessarily impossible son, born in lawful wedlock of
himself and _any_ lady, also married elsewhere, provided that the
couple were of different nationalities and each resident at home. It
was thought necessary, said Mr. Wraxall, to bar cases of murder by the
policy-holder, of whichever sex.
"I can't see the necessity," said Challis. "The Office could not refuse
to carry out the bargain because of suspicion of murder; and in case of
conviction the chance of a family goes down to almost _nil_, because of
the hanging. See?"
"Quite so, as a rule. But cases might occur of conviction and hanging
deferred for months, even years. It might even happen that an insured
son had become a _bénéficiare_ to the extent of a complete University
education before either of his parents was arrested for murder. Such
an event would have to be provided against, or due allowance made in
fixing the amount of the premium. But without going so far as that, we
should meet with instances of murderers under this arrangement getting
married while out on bail. A posthumous son could not be fairly branded
as illegitimate because his father was hanged and his mother sentenced
to penal servitude before his birth. Holy Matrimony is all that
legitimacy demands."
"Couldn't you raise the premium, so as to cover all possible cases?
Distaste for murder, on its merits, would tend to keep the number low.
Make it eighteenpence."
"Pardon me, Mr. Challis, you do not understand Human Nature. The
passing from pence to shillings marks a crucial point of its
susceptibilities. For one man who will go over a shilling to provide
against a defined contingency you will meet with a million who will
invest pence on some chance they almost deny the existence of, simply
because, if it _did_ come to pass, the benefit would be so out of all
proportion to the sum risked to obtain it. If an investment of one
halfpenny could be shown to connect itself with a possible gain of
ten million pounds, the whole population of the world would plunge to
that extent. There can be no reasonable doubt that, however improbable
it may seem to any married man that he should marry the widow of a
particular foreigner, quite unknown, still, the advantage of having
their son's education provided at a cost of nine point-ought-six pence
would be an irresistible argument in favour of its outlay. Nothing
short of mathematical certainty that no such son was possible would...."
"I understand perfectly. That is my own view. _I_ draw the line at a
shilling. To go beyond it opens up a world of immoral extravagance...."
The speaker felt in danger of yawning, and, to avoid it and break loose
from his persecutor, had to fall back on the time-honoured expedient of
inventing a neglected duty elsewhere. He drew his watch suddenly from
its pocket with the _verve_ of an angler landing a fish, and exclaimed
with sudden deep conviction: "I really must run!"
And Mr. Alfred Challis ran, and found that letters for the Post had
to be ready at eleven forty-five. He had come away from home with the
best intentions of writing a line every day to his wife, and, indeed,
had meant to write long humorous letters with satirical descriptions of
the British Toff at Home, all the points of which would make good copy
after, as it was only Marianne. It wasn't like repeating a published
article. But this time it would have to be a line, or at most a sheet
of note-paper; and it was accordingly.
When one has arrived at the time of life when one weighs beforehand
each sentence one writes, even to an intimate friend--instead of
dashing recklessly on, as in one's glorious youth--how glad one
sometimes is to be put under compulsion about the contents of a letter!
Challis wouldn't acknowledge his obligation to the coercion of the
Postal limit--not he! But he felt it all the same. For he couldn't have
filled out his letter with Universal Security. Marianne wouldn't have
understood a word of it. It wasn't her line. And as for his long talk
with Judith Arkroyd ... well, now!--why on earth couldn't he just write
that he had had one, and that she had told him a lot about the family,
and he would write a long letter about it next time, but really this
was only a line to catch the Post. Why not, indeed? Yes, of course,
that was the proper thing to write. He wrote it, and denied the pause,
to his own satisfaction. But he was grateful to the Post for being so
coercive and superseding and cancelling all considerations of--of what?
He denied that there was anything to cancel, and directed the letter.